


The Rest-Cure

by cygnes



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 06:49:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13875450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/cygnes
Summary: Armitage Hux is not unwell when he arrives at the resort where he is meant to meet an associate of his late father. His condition deteriorates quickly, though.





	The Rest-Cure

**Author's Note:**

> For the Kylux Cantina prompt "[if it hurts, that means that's working](http://kyluxcantina.tumblr.com/post/171529156808/if-it-hurts-that-means-its-working)." Originally posted [here](http://manzanas-amargas.tumblr.com/post/171533355030/if-it-hurts-that-means-its-working) on tumblr.
> 
> Content warnings in endnote.

On paper, the trip to the mountains is meant to be a rest-cure: a charmingly old-fashioned vacation for someone too notoriously buttoned-up to go anywhere like a _spa_. The fact of the matter is something else entirely. There is a man — a friend of his late father’s — who wants to meet with him. It’s nothing sordid. Not even a social arrangement. A business proposition, that’s all.

His stepmother’s voice on the phone is small and tinny, which makes her misgivings easy to ignore. Maratelle is a sensible woman. If they were meeting in person, she might be able to talk him out of it. She was, after all, more privy to to the details of Brendol Hux’s professional life than anyone else. But at a distance —

At a distance, she’s only a voice.

Rae Sloane tells him it’s a bad idea. That’s almost enough to make him change his mind, though she doesn’t explicitly advise against the plan.

“You know that your father and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye,” Rae says, once she has offered him a glass of ice water and told him in no uncertain terms that it could be unwise to meet Mr. Snoke off the record and alone. “This particular financier was a frequent point of contention.”

“May I ask why?” Hux says.

Rae is quiet for a long time, looking out her office window into the rain. “Perhaps it’s better that you do meet him,” she says at last. “It’s difficult to put into words. You can judge for yourself. I have every faith that you’ll come to the right decision.”

His flight is long and blessedly uneventful. He associates rest-cures in his mind with northern Europe, but the resort on which Mr. Snoke had insisted on is in Québec. Further from his own network of connections than, say, Switzerland or Germany, but that might be part of the point. He’ll be acting entirely under his own power and according to his own judgment.

There is a car waiting at the airport. The drive is likewise long and uneventful, and it takes effort to stay awake. Trans-Atlantic jet lag is a nightmare in either direction. He’s so, so tired…

He doesn’t remember walking from the car into the lobby, but of course he must have. The man behind the front desk is small and dark-haired and soft-featured. Welcoming. Inoffensive.

“Armitage Hux,” the man greets him. It doesn’t sound like his name. It sounds like something else, in the small man’s francophone accent. “You’re expected.”

“Well, I should hope so,” Hux says. “I do have a reservation.”

“Of course,” the man says. “Before I check you in, I will need your electronics.” He places a box on the marble of the desk between them. “Some people, you see, will find time to work unless prevented in this way. And if there is no rest…” the man trails off with a shrug and an apologetic smile.

“If there is no rest, there will be no cure,” Hux says. The man behind the desk nods his agreement.

He surrenders his cell phone and his tablet. There is a landline phone in the lobby that he can use in case of emergency; it’s not as though he’s entirely cut off from the outside world.

There is the appointment with his personal health consultant after that: a tall, muscular woman who looks like she might have been an Olympic athlete. She questions him about his medical history, his family history. He admits to some slight issues with ligament laxity and resulting joint problems, likewise minor. A congenital defect, not a defect in his own health regimen; he has done his best to counteract it through building lean muscle. The health consultant is certified in physical therapy. She directs him to examine the degrees on her wall before asking to examine his wrist in turn. She tractions it gently, and he feels the familiar pop of small bones sliding back into place. It always hurts a little before it starts to feel better.

Mr. Snoke does not meet him at dinner. Their arrangement had been non-specific, besides the general dates. At some point they will meet. They will have a conversation, or several. Until then, Hux will defer to the expertise of his hosts. He will rest.

Except, of course, he can’t get to sleep that night. It shouldn’t be a problem. He’s exhausted; he’s never had trouble sleeping in unfamiliar places before. The room is sparse in an intentional, minimalist way: clean lines, crisp linen. He paces the floor. He stares at the ceiling. He washes his face in the little bathroom a second time, out of some futile hope that a partial repetition of his nightly routine will convince his body that it’s time to sleep. He looks out the window, over the lawn, and…

( _and there is a tall man dressed in black looking back at him_ )

He must have fallen asleep, because he doesn’t remember getting back into bed, but he finds himself staring at the ceiling as the sun comes up. He showers and dresses and eats a piece of whole wheat toast, plain, and an individual serving of expensive yogurt that comes in a small glass pot. He takes his tea on the terrace. It’s warm, for how far north the place is. It’s warm, but if he closes his eyes, he can hear the patter of raindrops again the windows in Rae’s office. He imagines telling her that he’ll change his flight, go to the Mediterranean instead. Somewhere warmer still. Valencia, maybe.

He is pulled from his reverie by the sound of cast iron scraping over flagstone. Someone has moved the chair next to his. A tall man, dressed in black.

“It didn’t look like it was taken,” the man says.

“It isn’t,” Hux says.

“Are you Armitage Hux?” the man says. His accent is American but he pronounces it like the concierge had. Hux nods. “I’m Kylo Ren. I work with Snoke.”

“I didn’t realize this was going to be done through an intermediary,” Hux says. Kylo Ren scowls at him as he sits down.

“He’s been delayed. He’ll be here tomorrow or the day after.”

“Ah,” Hux says. There seems to be nothing else to say.

“You wouldn’t be ready to see him anyway,” Kylo Ren says. “Not yet.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” Hux says. His tea has gone cold, despite sitting in the sun. He hasn’t been out here long. He hasn’t been out here long, but the sun is higher in the sky than it should be.

“You need to be in the right frame of mind,” Kylo Ren says. “To understand what he has to say. What he means to do.” The intensity of his gaze is a physical sensation. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

Hux goes back inside. It’s later than he thought; his mind must have been wandering. Maybe he fell asleep when he was thinking of Rae. Maybe it was a dream, like the dream last night that made Snoke’s associate seem familiar. There’s something inane and Freudian in that. Projection, dreaming, the uncanny. It’s just the jet lag.

The health consultant guides him though a customized calisthenics routine, and recommends swimming laps. Low-to-no impact. Good for the joints. So he swims, he showers again, he reads the first chapter of a forgettable novel left in one of the lounges by another guest. He eats lunch. There is a growing ache behind his eyes, and it does not ease when Kylo Ren takes the seat next to him again.

“When you go long enough without eating, you stop feeling hungry,” he says.

“I am eating,” Hux says, gesturing down at the plate in front of him. Arugula and delicate herbs, greenhouse-grown and lightly dressed with lemon.

“When you go long enough without sleeping, you stop feeling tired,” Kylo Ren says. “You just have to get through this first.”

“That’s absurd,” Hux says. “The body needs sleep. The body needs _food_. Not feeling hunger doesn’t mean you don’t need to eat.” He stabs vindictively at the salad. Kylo Ren, he notes with some satisfaction, is also eating: a seared duck breast so rare it’s nearly raw. “Anyway, I’ve gone without sleep before. For days, in fact. I did go to graduate school. And it only ever gets worse, not better. The effects are cumulative.” He should probably try to be kinder to someone who works with Snoke. He should try to make a good impression. He finds that he doesn’t care.

“But that was somewhere else,” Kylo Ren says. “Not here.” The meat on his fork drips something too thin and pink to be blood. The effect is much the same anyway. “What did you think you came here to be cured of?”

The ache behind his eyes does not go away even after he asks the concierge for ibuprofen. He takes the unmarked pills, from an unmarked bottle, and decides that he might as well trust the staff in this as he has in everything else. He isn’t up to doing much after lunch, and goes to his room to lie down. He brings the abandoned book from the lounge. It doesn’t seem to be the same book, though he found it in the same place. And he doesn’t really remember what he read, though it was only a few hours ago. Less, in fact. He must have forgotten to put on his watch this morning. His wrist is bare when he goes to check the time.

His wrist is bare, and his watch isn’t on his nightstand. His phone and tablet are locked in a box downstairs somewhere. The angle of the sun is his only way of telling time, and even that seems unreliable.

Hux misses dinner. He reads half the book and has forgotten the contents before he has even put it down. It hurts to move his eyes whether they’re open or closed.

He could go downstairs and use the phone in the lobby. He has memorized the office’s number, Rae’s personal number. The number of his late father’s house where Maratelle still lives.

He could, and he doesn’t. He turns off the bedside lamp and watches the shadows change in the moonlight. If he closes his eyes, still aching, he can hear the tinkle of glassware — no, of fine crystal — and the bell-like laughter of party guests. He can see black and white tile and rustling silk when the kitchen door swings back and forth. That’s the side where he belongs, but it’s better here, isn’t it, with…

His mother has been dead for over two decades and he hasn’t dreamed of her in all that time. He’s not dreaming now, either. He’s just somewhere else, somewhere she might be nearby.

His eyes hurt when they’re closed but it hurts more to open them, like the inside of his skull has been filled with something cold and sharp. Ice water from Rae’s office. Pins and needles from Maratelle’s sewing box.

There is a tall man dressed in black standing over him.

“You’re not like me,” the man in black says. “He was wrong. This will kill you.” The bed dips with the weight of another body. “Let me help. You’re better to us like you were before. More useful. You understand that, don’t you?”

Hux nods. He closes his eyes again and the cold in his head is dripping down his spine. There are lips on his. The dark of his eyelids gives way to a deeper darkness.

He’s well-rested and clear-eyed by the time Mr. Snoke deigns to grace the resort with his presence. He can answer calmly and in no uncertain terms when the old man asks if he killed his father. Kylo Ren has not said as much, but Hux has the definite impression that Mr. Snoke will not be put off by the simple fact of patricide.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for implied unethical medical or pseudo-medical treatment, loss of time, dissociation, insomnia, generalized physical illness (especially headaches), minor chronic health issues, mentions of disordered eating (in a fairly abstract/figurative way), mention of murder.
> 
> Vaguely influenced by the Robert Aickman's excellent short story "Into the Wood" and, more shamefully, probably by the movie _A Cure For Wellness_ , which I thought was a hot mess in most respects but had some cool visuals. I specifically did not use the eels and incest, though — you're welcome!
> 
> Fun fact: I have minor ligament laxity issues and only recently found out that it's more common among redheads, so naturally I inflicted it on Hux, too.


End file.
